


The Golem of Finchley Road

by AnAxForTheFrozenSea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anglo-Saxon Myth, Canon Jewish Character, Gen, Golems, London, Original Character(s), Summer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 01:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1533002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnAxForTheFrozenSea/pseuds/AnAxForTheFrozenSea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anthony thought he knew what to expect the summer following a particularly horrifying year at Hogwarts. Heat, long afternoons with his magic and muggle cohort, and maybe, finally, a date with Natalie Yarosh. But not the shadow, or the monster that keeps it at bay. The more Anthony learns of the darkness encroaching on Hampstead, the less certain he becomes of what it is he is fighting, and where he has been standing all along...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Golem of Finchley Road

“Aren’t you sick of this?” said Jack, biting into the cone of his second 99 Flake. It had been part of his conditions for going back out to the park with Anthony that he’d be covering all ice cream costs for the afternoon. They had already done Shoreditch this week, and Jack had made it overwhelmingly clear that he would have been perfectly happy dicking around back in Hampstead, especially seeing as the Forsyths had finally gotten back from Spain.

“Come on, you love MWJ,” said Anthony, scanning the crowded park for potential contestants. It was a fine art, choosing someone whose demeanor and appearance could just as easily make him or her a Muggle, Wizard, or Jew (or some combination thereof). It had been a game they had invented about two years back, soon after Jack finally figured out that Anthony was not in fact attending the City of London’s Freeman School, and that it was not just another “Jewish thing” to keep a pet owl (to this day Anthony wondered how he had gone on so long without figuring it out).

“ _You_ love MWJ.”

“You have a better idea?” Staying in the flat was out of the question. They were nearly a week into the latest in a string of heat waves to hit London, and the Goldstein flat had become unbearable. Jack’s family, the nice, reasonable Muggles that they were, saw the benefit of investing in air conditioning units, but the mere mention of such technology in the Goldstein household was enough to launch his father into another story about summers in Be’er Sheva. _No air condition, no magic…if I could survive it than there’s no reason you can’t._

“I already told you—“

“One that doesn’t involve turning Mr. Ghorbani’s cat into a Kebab.”

“Come on, a _Catbab_? It’d be brilliant. You wouldn’t even need to use magic.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“How can you say that? Have you tried one?”

“No, and I don’t plan to.”

“That cat’s Satan’s fucking familiar, anyway. No one would miss it.”

“Mr. Ghorbani, maybe?”

“Oh, I’d get him another one. Maybe one that’s actually _normal,_ this time.”

“I think he likes it that it’s part Doxie.” Anthony had lent Jack his copy of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ before leaving last year, after he approached him with a theory that the reason the cat could fly was because it was part dragon.

“Well what else could it be? Like, it’s definitely magic.” Jack had taken surprisingly well to the whole magic thing, though he seemed to credit a bit too much to dragons, a fact which may have had something to do with an obsession with a certain series of novels Anthony refused to open on principal.

“There are more magical creatures than dragons.”

“Oh, what, like vampires?”

“I wouldn’t call them ‘creatures’ to their faces. Humans with unconventional appetites, maybe.”

“Goldstein, I was kidding.”

“I’m dead serious.” Which had lead to the lending of the book. It was almost most definitely a violation of the Statue of Secrecy, but so was just about everything else in South Hampstead.

“Who thought it would be a good idea to make cats venomous? Seriously.” Jack still bore the scar from the first time he discovered that the Mr. Ghorbani’s cat was “unusual,” a line of scratches that were such a bright blue they nearly glowed in the dark.

“Hey, look, her: verdict?” asked Anthony, cocking his head in the direction of a particularly tall, skinny girl who had just walked past, her height exaggerated by the long black maxi dress she wore and a massive, floppy black hat.

“Definite Muggle,” said Jack.

“Really? With a hat like that?”

“It’s on sale at Topshop. My sister’s got one like that.”

“Well she’s not a Jew, that’s for certain,” said Anthony almost immediately.

“Do you ever think this game may be a touch problematic?”

“It’s problematic when _you_ play it,” said Anthony, grinning, “I on the other hand, can profile people to my hearts content. It’s one of the perks, you see.”

“That and Matzah.”

“Matzah isn’t a perk.”

“Not even when your Mum does it with chocolate?”

Anthony considered it. “Well aside from that.”

“Speaking of which—“

“It’s not Passover, mate.”

“I was going to ask for another ice cream.”

“You’re done with that one already?”

“I was hungry and it was getting all melty.”

“I need something if I’m going to be able to top off my Oyster Card tomorrow.” Anthony prided himself on being among the select few wizards he knew who actually had a grasp on how the underground worked. He could in theory get to his job at the bookshop via floo powder (as Mr. Arbiv had continually suggested, always with the note of disdain, whenever he simply entered through the back door) but his mum refused to put the flat on the network. And he needed if he wanted to go anywhere with Jack, or any of his other Muggle friends.

“Remind me who wanted to come here?”

“Fine. Hold on.”

Anthony pushed himself to his feet and strode over to the ice cream truck parked just outside the gate. A small queue had developed, consisting of a healthy mix of parents being dragged by screaming children and shitty London hipsters. Hampstead had it’s own charm, but there was no comparison with Shoreditch. It was so lively it practically had its own pulse. Who knew what on earth wandered around here? He honestly found it more mesmerizing than Diagon Alley. Magic aside, the wizard high street was bit predictable, and had hardly changed in the last 600 years. Nothing in British magic changed much in 600 years. It was his mother’s father’s favorite topic of conversation. "You know what defines ze British _Zauberer_? _Tradition_ and _Inbreeding_. Zey are vorse than ze royal family.: Anthony had learned that it was a conversation pointless to interrupt. Disagreeing would evoke both wrath and potentially Bat Bogies, and agreeing with him would launch him into their passionate defense. “How dare you inzult ze British?” Anthony muttered under his breath, mimicking his grandfather's thick German accent and chuckling to himself, _“You vould not be here if it vere not for ze British!”_

Anthony didn’t want to push any of the kids over, but he also suspected that if he didn’t do something he’d be waiting through August. Trying in earnest not to crush any one (something that seemed to be a strong possibility given that he towered over them all, and hadn’t quite got the hang of his recently acquired height) he cut around a couple who were trying to order and make love at the same time, nudging them out of the way until he could make direct eye contact with the guy in the truck.

“Two 99 Flakes, please.”

The man in the truck eyed him skeptically. “Haven’t you been up here already?”

“I’m sorry we like ice cream?” Anthony wasn’t sure if he heard him, as he had already turned to get the order. The couple he had moved had noticed him, and gave him a mildly menacing look before recommencing sucking at each other’s faces. The polite thing to do would be to look away, but their sheer lack of awareness of the space was fascinating, and Anthony continued to stare at them until he felt a tap on his shoulder. He was met with two cones precariously close to his nose when he turned.

“Cheers,” he muttered, taking them quickly before heading back over to where Jack lay sprawled out on the grass.

At the sight of the ice cream he sat up and accepted the cone from Anthony. “Took you long enough.”

“What, you wanted me to flatten a bunch of children?”

“If they were in the way. That’s why I keep you around. Tall friends are good for crushing things.”

“I thought it was because I always agree to pay for ice cream.”

“Oh, what a lovely boy! He’s _tall_ , _handsome_ , and has a _job_ ,” said Jack, adopting the voice he referred to affectionately as 'Great Aunt Jackie.'  “You’re the dream son-in-law of half the street.”

“You laugh, but you stayed at Hogwarts last Easter holiday. You know how many ‘my Mum said you were home from boarding school and told me we should go have dinner,’ calls I got? _Six_! And Mrs. Kaufman had me over with Mum for tea and I refused to drink it because I swear I saw a half-empty love potion bottle in their kitchen, and she spent the entire time telling us about how Leah had finally ‘bloomed.’ Thank god she hadn’t been there. I can’t look her in the eye anymore…”

“Oh, the trials of South Hampstead’s most eligible NJB. How you must suffer!” Anthony aimed a punch toward Jack’s shoulder, which Jack dodged, snorting.

  
“Why else do you think I’d drag you away from Eric Forsyth? Misery loves company, mate.”

  
“That it does, that it does.”

They lingered for another two odd hours before they finally began to head back. It was getting close to official Goldstein suppertime (6:30 exactly) and he’d experienced too often the hell that came with coming in a minute or two late to do so over something not exactly earth-shattering in importance.

“Honestly, is my sunburn that bad?” asked Jack, prodding repeatedly at his nose and wincing.

“Fried. Completely cooked. Eric Forsyth will never want to set eyes on you ever again.”

“Hilarious. I can’t stop laughing. Seriously, is it that bad?”

“You’ll be fine, quit worrying.”

The ride on the underground back was mildly hellish. They never quite seemed to figure out how to properly ventilate the trains, and the stuffiness and smell of sweat clouded Anthony’s already sun-sleepy brain. Climbing up out of the Finchley Road station was like coming up for air after being caught a little too long underwater.

“Shame you can’t just use your broomstick to get us around,” said Jack, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.

“No kidding.”

“You think it’ll peel?”

“You’re whole face will peel off, and out will emerge the strange lizard creature you actually are, Jack Rogers.”

“Your insufferable.”

“It’s my specialty.”

The street had an air of exhaustion about it, as if it too had been too tired to do anything more in light of the weather. If he focused, Anthony could see the pavement shimmer in the low early evening light.

A few small children lingered on front steps and under trees, nursing bottles of Coke and ice-lollies. He swore he saw Samantha Clearwater discreetly sip from a bottle of pumpkin juice, a discretion undermined when she offered to her gaggle of friends to try a sip. Nothing out of the ordinary, though the street was far emptier than normal. It was getting late, and with the heat there was really no compelling reason to be outside.

“Tomorrow?” asked Jack, already walking away from Anthony toward his flat.

“I finish work at three.”

“I’ll come find you.”

“Sounds like a plan, see you.”

“Cheers.”

Anthony lifted his hand in a half in a non-committal wave before continuing a bit down the street toward his building. He was very nearly there when he though he saw something move in the corner of his eye. But when he turned to look there was nothing to see. One of the trees rustled. His head was swimming with heat and half-formed thoughts and guesses about what his mum had made. He thought he could smell salmon. Shaking his head as if he had water caught in his ear, he turned back to his door and dragged himself inside.

**Author's Note:**

> Just to clarify: NJB=Nice Jewish Boy.


End file.
